


Liu Yangyang's guide to harbouring a fugitive.

by lunecarree



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Angst, Cyborg Yangyang, M/M, Open Ending, an attempt at humour was made, dystopian universe, space criminal ten, this is more sad than it was supposed to be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:46:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28885590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunecarree/pseuds/lunecarree
Summary: “Yangyang would like to note that harbouring a fugitive is probably (most definitely) very illegal and that no one should do so, no matter how sexy the fugitive in question is.” Ten read aloud and turned to him with a triumphant smirk, “You think I’m sexy?”Yangyang suddenly felt his body temperature reaching dangerous levels, “No, it was just a hypothetical warning.”
Relationships: Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten/Liu Yang Yang
Comments: 13
Kudos: 51
Collections: Challenge #4 — Awaken The World





	Liu Yangyang's guide to harbouring a fugitive.

Yangyang was a heavy sleeper, this served him very well most of the time, living in the noisy neighbourhood that he does. So, when he first woke up to a crashing noise in his kitchen, he thought it was a dream. 

He stumbled through to his kitchen to see the place was absolutely destroyed and there was someone lying in the middle of the floor. 

“Great.” He pouted, the man who had broken his roof had taken down most of his appliances with him too,

“My bread maker.” Yangyang whined in mourning. 

The noise of Yangyang’s complaint was enough to stir the intruder, who groaned from his spot on the floor, but made no effort to get up. 

Yangyang moved to try and get a closer look of the bread maker destroyer and was surprised with what he saw. _Well, he certainly was lost,_ Yangyang thought to himself. His attire was a little too eccentric for a local and he seemed to have no obvious physical augmentations. 

The man’s eyes opened to see Yangyang hovering over him, inspecting him.

“Can I help you?” The man asked, rather rudely Yangyang noticed. 

“Can _I_ help _you_?” Yangyang retorted, “You’re the one who crashed through _my_ roof.” Even the man’s eyes were natural, beautiful as well, he noted. Yangyang was kind of jealous. 

“Not intentionally.” The man winced as he sat up, forcing Yangyang to move back from him and almost tripping up on what used to be his kitchen table, but now was ruined. 

It would take months for Yangyang to fix the mess this stranger had caused, the absolute audacity of him to not even have apologised yet.

“You still did though,” the cyborg rolled his eyes at the stranger. 

“Do you want me to say I’m sorry?” The stranger asked when he was back on his feet. 

“Well, yes.” 

“I’m sorry.” Yangyang’s sensors picked up on the insincerity. “I’ll buy you a new kitchen.” Yangyang scoffed in disbelief. 

“You can’t just _buy_ me a new kitchen.” Yangyang tries to study him in further detail so he can see if anywhere indicates his origin, because he was _definitely_ not from here—or anywhere near here for that matter. “Do you even know where you are?” 

The stranger studies his surroundings for a second. “Well, I was hoping somewhere close to sub-sector Q7.” Yangyang gaped at him. Well, how fucking comical. The stranger looked a little pained when he noticed the cyborg’s expression. 

“This _is_ sub-sector V257.” The stranger looked confused, “The Cyborg Dump,” he explained, a little annoyed. What kind of upper class secluded background did this man come from to have never heard of the place?

Suddenly the stranger widened his eyes in realisation. Yangyang disliked him even more second by second. “Like the government monitored sub-sectors.” He whispered, and Yangyang rolled his eyes. 

“All sub-sectors are government monitored.” It’s not exactly subtle, even human eyes can pick up on the cameras and you don’t need to be fully versed in government technology to notice the chips. 

“I need to get out of here, like, five minutes ago.” The stranger was panicking now, Yangyang felt less than sympathetic. “You have no idea the trouble that you could be in if the patrols find me here.” 

“The patrolling robots are going to recognise you?” He asks, a little bit skeptical. This stranger didn’t have the aura of someone that was well-known. Yangyang called his bluff. 

The stranger, who didn’t seem to have any time for Yanygang’s antics, glared. “ _Yes_ , That’s a part of the whole intergalactic criminal thing.”

The cyborg was sure that he had misheard. 

“Intergalactic criminal," he repeated. 

“Yes.” The stranger was losing his patience. “Nice to meet you, I’m Ten, wanted dead in 66 quarters and alive in just over 100."

The man, Ten, stood. “Now are you going to help me leave or what?” 

There was a limited amount of things that Yangyang could do to aid Ten in leaving the cyborg dump. He didn’t own much, just enough to make things when the government needed him too. 

All he could really do was comm someone on his behalf. 

“Send a comm?” Ten asked, unamused.

“I’m afraid I don’t have the materials to build you a ship so you can get out of here,” Yangyang sighed as he watched Ten pace around his workroom. “I could send a comm to someone who could help you.” 

“Like who?” Ten scoffed, “You don’t seem the type to know someone who smuggles fugitives over borders."

“I don’t.” Yangyang agreed. “I figured you would know someone. A co-worker of sorts, perhaps.” 

Ten looked amused, “Being a criminal isn’t a job, did you think I have a bunch of criminals on speed-dial?” 

Yangyang physically couldn’t blush, but if he could he would certainly be doing so right now. 

“Maybe,” Yangyang responds, embarrassed. “Okay but surely there is one person on this planet that you could contact.” 

“I don’t want to.” 

Yangyang cannot believe the man in front of him, “Would you prefer being thrown in jail by a patrol bot?” He exasperates, “Because that’s the only other alternative,” He thinks that Ten has probably been in jail before, so this does not phase him as much as the cyborg would have liked it to.

“Fine,” Ten sighs. “I’ll comm him or whatever.” 

He is petulant, like a child, Yangyang notes. 

###

There was no instant response to the comm, not for the first two days. This was incredibly inconvenient for Yangyang because he felt way too guilty to just kick Ten out, despite all the misfortunes the criminal had caused him. 

So now, Yangyang was officially harbouring a fugitive. 

It was probably too late to report him to anyone, no matter how tempting Ten made reporting him.

The criminal would just never leave him alone, kind of like an overly clingy house pet. Ten was always lingering and Yangyang was bordering on the line of snapping but also secretly enjoying the company. He was lonely. So the company, despite how overly-constant it may be, was sort of appreciated. 

“What are you doing?” Ten snuck into the room, bearing a scary resemblance to a house cat. Yangyang immediately dismissed his screens, embarrassed of what he had been doing. 

“Nothing.” His voice isn’t stable when he responds, signifying that whatever he had been doing had clearly not been nothing. Ten narrowed his eyes at the cyborg, before moving to push Yangyang away and somehow reactivating the system. 

Yangyang could only watch in equal parts awe and horror. “How did you-?”

Ten smirks at him, “You learn a thing or two in my line of work.” 

Yangyang rolled his eyes, “I thought you said being a criminal wasn’t a job,” He counter argued. Ten just waves his hand dismissively.

“Now what is this?” Ten drawls in a teasing manner. Yangyang tries to rush to move the criminal and shut off the screens but he is too late, the damage is done. 

“Liu Yangyang’s Simple Guide to Harbouring a Fugitive.” Yangyang was positively mortified.

“Yangyang would like to note that harbouring a fugitive is probably (most definitely) very illegal and that no one should do so, no matter how sexy the fugitive in question is.” Ten read aloud and turned to him with a triumphant smirk, “You think I’m sexy?”

Yangyang suddenly felt his body temperature reaching dangerous levels, “No, it was just a hypothetical warning.” He lied. Ten was sexy, curse him. “Is that all you got from that?” The cyborg complained. 

“What do you mean is that ‘all I got’ from that? That was the most important part.” The cyborg was sure he was being teased at this point and his patience was wearing thin. Realistically, what was holding him back from just going outside and screaming until a police bot came and took Ten away? 

Yangyang’s pathetic crush on the fugitive, that was what. 

The cyborg had only known the man for a little over two days but, despite his better judgement, he had grown rather fond of him. Maybe it was just because Ten was the only person he had actually had a conversation with that lasted more than five minutes in almost over a year. Or maybe it was because despite all the teasing, annoying behaviour and the whole wanted dead or alive criminal thing, Ten was genuinely a sweet guy. 

Or maybe Yangyang was just out of his mind. 

Whatever it was, there was something there for Yangyang. 

“Anything else to add to this report?” Ten continued to tease, “Maybe about how great I look in black clothing?” Yangyang moved to push Ten away from the screens and shut them down, but it was too late. The damage was done, Ten had read the whole report anyway. 

“You don’t look good in black clothing,” Yangyang lied as he tried to push Ten out of the room, “You should really consider changing up on the monochrome look. It's boring.” Ten did look really good in black but Yangyang did not think that the colour or the clothes had anything to do with it. 

“Sorry I forgot to bring my whole wardrobe with me when I came crashing through your roof.” 

Another thing the cyborg had picked up on their two days together is Ten’s constant use of sarcasm. It was annoying as hell, but he kind of liked how easy he made it to joke around.

“What’s the report even for anyway?” Ten asked, sitting himself down instead of leaving the room, 

“I’m a scientist.” Yangyang answered easily, “This is an unfamiliar situation so I’m just collecting my findings to help anyone who might end up in a similar predicament.”

That, and he was also considering attaching a picture and keeping it as a kind of keep-sake. A memory of their time together. 

“So, I’m some kind of scientific breakthrough for you.” If Yangyang had not known better, he might’ve thought that Ten actually sounded upset. 

“No,” Yangyang exaggerated as he spoke, “Just think of it as a coping mechanism. I’m out of my depths and I’m trying to make sense of things.” 

That, apparently, was not the right thing to say because it only had Ten frowning. 

“Is my stay really making you that uncomfortable?” He sounded serious, and Yangyang did not like it at all. 

This was not the Ten that Yangyang felt at ease with. In fact, he felt extremely on edge now, considering the possibility that he had managed to hurt the other's feelings. 

He had screwed up, majorly. 

“No,” Yangyang rushed to try and settle things, “You’re actually kind of fun to be around.” Yangyang admits. 

That shy confession was apparently enough to snap Ten out of whatever mood he might have been in because the frown was gone and immediately replaced with Ten’s signature smirk, “I know.” 

Yangyang shoved him, “Now get out, I’m working.” 

Ten, finally, stood up and moved towards the door. “Fine,” he sighed, “But only because I know you’re _really_ busy.” Yangyang knew that this was a dig at the guide again, but didn’t even want to try and justify himself, letting Ten win this round. 

###

It was a little after that conversation that Yangyang realised maybe he didn’t want Ten to leave. The cyborg was enjoying the company a little more than he should have. The change up in routine was nice. 

Honestly speaking, Yangyang liked playing chess with someone that was not a computer droid, at least this way he has a way of winning. 

“How are you so good at this?” Ten complained, head in hands, Yangyang smiled to himself proud. 

“Three years with no one but artificial intelligence to play with.” Yangyang bragged, it was also just because Ten was genuinely atrocious at the game, whoever had taught him had clearly only sought Ten’s failure. 

“One day, I will beat you.” Ten threatens and Yangyang feels a pang in his chest. That comment felt too much like a promise of seeing eachother again, a promise of them having an infinite amount of time together. 

Two promises that Yangyang knew Ten definitely would never be able to keep. 

The truth was that anyday someone could come and rescue Ten and take him out of here, leaving Yangyang behind. 

This time comes a lot sooner than Yangyang would like, because not even half an hour after the chess game, Yangyang’s screen flashes with a comm notification. 

Ten, who had also seen the alert, made no attempt of moving to open it. Yangyang was also rooted in his seat, staring at Ten who only stared back.

Maybe, neither of them were ready for this to be over. 

“Is that?” Ten whispered. 

“Yeah.” Yangyang cleared his throat, “That’s a comm from your friend.” _The comm to remind us that you’re going soon. That this is temporary._

“Oh,” Ten broke eye contact, fixing his gaze to the floor. “Are you going to get that?” Yangyang had to stop himself from asking if Ten wanted him to. 

Of course that’s what Ten wants, he wants to get out of here and do whatever the hell he did before they met. They’ll both go on with their lives and pretend this never happened. Yangyang should pretend this never happened. 

“Of course,” Yangyang responds, moving towards the screen. He held his breath in anticipation, hoping for the slight chance that this was not the comm they thought it was, just a check in from some government official. 

Yangyang’s eyes shut after reading it.

It was official. Ten was leaving, and he would be leaving soon. Sooner than Yangyang had hoped. 

###

Their last hours together were spent in silence. 

Yangyang doesn’t know why he feels so solemn about Ten’s impending departure. If anything, the cyborg should be relieved. Ten has been nothing but a burden to him, a really annoying burden. 

Or so he is trying to convince himself. 

Yangyang couldn’t say anything, he was scared that if he opened his mouth the only words that would come out would be him begging Ten to stay with him. A ridiculous, impossible notion. 

Another notification pinged up on the screen, Yangyang coughed. 

“ETA: 10 minutes.” He informed Ten, who seemed way too lost in his own thoughts to have even heard him. 

Yangyang doesn’t repeat himself though. 

“It’s sort of ridiculous.” Ten finally speaks, around five minutes later. Yangyang jumps in shock, they had been sitting in silence for too long. Yangyang had become accustomed to it. 

“What is?” He chokes over his words. 

“The fact I don’t want to leave.” Yangyang stares at Ten, eyes wide. Ten doesn’t break eye contact with the floor. “I mean, I can’t even go outside, I’ve been wearing the same clothes for days and the food is absolutely terrible.” 

Ten finally looks to Yangyang, “So, tell me, why do I want to stay?” 

Yangyang couldn’t think of an answer either, he was just as confused as the older boy. Why would Ten want to stay here in this dump with him? 

“I don’t—“ Yangyang didn’t get to voice this opinion because Ten was cutting him off, another annoying habit of Ten’s which should make getting over him easy. Yangyang tries to fool himself. 

_“You.”_ Ten answers, suddenly a lot closer. 

When did he get this close? Yangyang can’t remember. 

“Me?” Yangyang repeats, pointing to himself. 

“Yes, you.” Ten was in front of him and Yangyang tried to ignore the dramatic increase in his heart rate. 

The cyborg doesn’t get the chance to respond because Ten is suddenly up against him, pushing him against the desk he was leaning on and kissing him. Ten’s lips move against his and Yangyang is frozen. 

This was his first kiss, he had only ever seen in movies and dramas, and the cyborg didn’t know what he was expecting but it certainly wasn’t this. 

Yangyang can confidently say that the dramas were wrong. 

In the dramas it looked soft, a feather like touch of lips. This was a stark contrast, Ten’s lips were warm and a lot wetter than Yangyang expected, pressing against him with such fervor Yangyang barely felt like he was keeping up when he tried to match it. 

It was perfect. 

Yangyang had no concept of anything other than the feeling of Ten’s lips on his own, his tongue exploring his mouth. So, when someone coughed and Ten went flying backwards, Yangyang had no concept of what was going on. 

“Hope I wasn’t interrupting,” The man smiled sweetly at the pair and Ten glared in response. 

“Shut it Baek.” 

‘Baek’ gasped, “Is this how you treat your dear friends who come to rescue you?” Yangyang winced, “Speaking of we need to get out of here, so no more goodbye kisses.” Ten waved the man off. 

This was it, this was goodbye, for good. 

“I’m sorry.” Ten whispered, pressing his head against Yangyang’s. “Maybe one day I’ll come back for you.” 

Yangyang smiles back, bitterly, it was a promise he knew Ten couldn’t keep. 

“I’ll wait,” He still deludes himself. 

###

_** Liu Yangyang’s Simple Guide to Harbouring A Fugitive.  ** _

_Yangyang would like to note that harbouring a fugitive is probably (most definitely) very illegal and that no one should do so, no matter how sexy the fugitive in question is. **Especially** if they are sexy, don’t do it, that’s how everything goes to shit. _

_The real difficulty with harbouring criminals is not the government officials looking for them, the real issue is **them**. They’ll make you fall for them with their charming smiles and bold promises that they never keep. So the only rule here is just don’t think with your heart. _

_As long as you don’t fall in love with them, you’ll be fine._


End file.
